I suppose I should update this. I've been out of touch lately.
But truthfully, it's been nice. Refocusing, reevaluating, and just plain organizing. Which, also truthfully, I needed. Additionally, I've been eating a lot of applesauce.
Our End of the Year Lists are up. And here is my personal list, which - if I can say this much - is BEAUTIFUL. I'm really pleased with my list this year, more than any years in the past. That's probably because 2009 was rock solid in tunes, thwarping 2008. God, I'd hate to be 2010 right now.
Wow, it's been forever since I've done staff recs.
I've been mulling over my End of the Year lists, and I'm gonna give you a peek. TV has been dominating my life as of late. Here are my favorite TV shows of 2009. This could change, but here's what I'm feeling at this second.
Favorite TV Shows of 2009
1. Friday Night Lights
2. Dexter
3. How I Met Your Mother
4. Flash Forward
5. Stormchasers
6. Top Chef
7. Party Down
8. Gossip Girl
9. Glee
10. LOST
11. Fringe
12. Dollhouse
EDIT: I cannot believe I forgot about How I Met Your Mother!! Updating now.
I'm trying to figure out how much she damaged me as a young adult, and she's trying to figure out why I am such a fuck-up. Not really, but kind of. Actually, we both just love each other so much that we had to take it to the Internet. I am the biggest dork on the planet.
Look, I'm relatively unmotivated in comparison to, say, a rocket scientist? But if I could change career paths right now, I would be a storm chaser. A total fucking storm chaser. Danger, PhD and all.
He lifts the grocery bag to show the room, and we chuckle in response.
"Do you think the zombies would eat these?"
I turn to him as were walking out the side stage doors. I can hear commotion outside, like excited buzzing. "Wait, you call your fans zombies?"
He laughs and throws in a goofy smile. It's a genuine one too. Even slightly angelic.
I swing open the side stage door, and there it is: a real life barricade. There are two sides to the sea of screaming girls, creating a path to the door of the bus. We make our way across the parking lot, and I light a cigarette to maintain my excuse for watching. Single screams, trills and hollers go unnoticed, and it's as a collective group, a live, breathing solid life force, that this swarm of girls throw their determined flag to the ground. As one, they are nothing. As fifty, sixty or more, they are an army. They require attention, and they will get it. With grapes.
He heads to the far end of the line, the side closest to the patio wall and plucks one off for the first zombie.
My blog has hit 100,000 views. Thanks for taking a liking to this girl from the wrong side of the tracks, I'm truly touched.
That said, I'm still a little freaked out by Paranormal Activity, and I saw it a whole 24 hours ago. I think I'm a pussy.
And PS - Today is my third year anniversary as staff on AbsolutePunk. I cannot even begin to list all the crucially awesome experiences, courtesy of this little engine that could. Thank you again, all of you, for the fun times and drama llamas. How weird is it that I hit 100,000 and three years on the same day!
No, but seriously, the New Moon soundtrack is actually quite good.
And anyway, I've read the Harry Potter books and seen all the movies so I'm not sure I have room to diss on super teen book-to-movie series. I don't quite understand the extreme hate on Twilight anymore other than the storyline and buzz is just so over-the-top. And the sparkling. It just seems like the cool thing to do at this point.
01. Death Cab for Cutie - Meet Me on the Equinox
02. Band of Skulls - Friends
03. Thom Yorke - Hearing Damage
04. Lykke Li - Possibility
05. The Killers - A White Demon Love Song
06. Anya Marina - Satellite Heart
07. Muse - I Belong to You (New Moon)
08. Bon Iver & St. Vincent - Roslyn
09. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Done All Wrong
10. Hurricane Bells - Monsters
11. Sea Wolf - The Violet Hour
12. Ok Go - Shooting the Moon
13. Grizzly Bear - Slow Life
14. Editors - No Sound But the Wind
15. Alexandre Desplat - New Moon (The Meadow)
What makes a band tick? Or click? Or what makes a band want to play on stage in front of thousands, hundreds or just three dudes every night with same pizazz. I dunno, it seems pretty simple. It's about energy, it's about vibe. It's about passion and inspiration, from the band and from the crowd. The anatomy of a band on stage, if you will.
Questions and thoughts ablaze, my mind was spinning after I caught the Brand New Daisy Tour. In Chicago with friends, I went to see Brand New, Manchester Orchestra and hometown openers Sybris. The venue - the gorgeous Aragon Ballroom - was designed like royalty. The place was huge and open and the ceilings looked as though they extended into the never-ending sky. More auditorium than small club, but more small club than stadium, Aragon was quite a location for the some 4500 of us that were in attendance.
The opening band, Sybris, wasn't a surprise, in a sense. Back in the day, when Brand New brought out bands like Manchester Orchestra, Anathallo and Colour Revolt, we got the sense that the band was trying tell us you should like this band. Sometimes it worked. And then, the hammer doesn't always hit the nail on the head. Take 2006 summer openers Ultra High Frequency. Sybris was comfortably in the middle of the spectrum. Appropriately bombastic, spatial but relatively unmemorable filler, the frontlady singer was calm and healthy in her role as a Feist and Karen O hodgepodge. Instrumentally, Sybris is familiar to a driving rock version of Sonic Youth, except more accessible to the young adult man crew of the Brand New fanbase. She was certainly more than a pair of tits, I'll tell you that.
Manchester Orchestra and Andy Hull, looking as beardly as ever, took the stage to an enthused crowd. While it was clear that many of the night's guests were still not on the Man Orch in, their set brought in a pulsation from the audience. Like the show had officially started. Whether it be the huge venue and that balconey seats can never translate as well as the frontlines, it felt as though the band hurried through their set, intensely concentrated and only glancing up once in awhile to soak in the Midwestern hospitality. Hull mentioned earlier in the evening that they had been touring non-stop previous to the Daisy tour; I imagine it was time for a rest. Their set consisted of songs only off Mean Everything To Nothing, begging the question: When will we get Like A Virgin again?
And then there was them, that one band. Brand New - for every penny they're worth - never fails to intrigue. Part of me can wrap my head around it; the transition from pop-punk to emo poster boys to progressive rock with the deepest of lyrical themes and straight up suspense. And then part of me is still wondering what Brand New is thinking. Why the fan disconnect? Why the obscurity? Even the most distant obscurity has some connection to its owner, and I want to know what that is.
And then there are the little things. Jesse Lacey chucking his guitar at Lollapalooza. The lyric books. The no U.S. press for Daisy. And even smaller things. Which leaves me wondering if I'm overthinking this (which is obvious, really), and if the band isn't battling an inner fan-band war.
Yet, that doesn't stop me from buying tickets to their tours in different time zones. I might have a problem. For all the chances I've caught Brand New perform live, I've either been heartachingly disappointed or mindfuckingly satisfied. This time, my experience was content in the middle. The setlist, seen below, was varied enough to quench. I've seen Brand New when they played setlists of my now-dreams; I have no room to complain. However, it's obvious in the band's onstage resolve that they're not thrilled to repeat the motions anymore, and they're greatest satisfaction from touring comes from playing new material. After "No Seatbelt Song", Jesse said to the audience, "We're gonna play new stuff because that's fun for us. And don't worry, we'll play old stuff." As soon as "Vices" kicked in, the band also re-kicked in their energy. The lights show became a production with mysterious black and white images reeling through on the backdrop screen, encapsulating the eerie, big beat ideals of Daisy and the rest of the set. Between the newfounded energy of Brand New and this aura, this section of show was excitable. Later on and during "Sowing Season", Lacey was engulfed in orange beams. This combined with the grand, archaic beauty of Aragon and a mortal tide of swaying figures ... it was one of those mental pictures that I'll keep stored away.
(Brand New photos courtesy of my friend Shelby. I gave her my photo pass for their set - she's better with my camera than I am, truth be told.)
See the thousands of screaming bodies? Does that inspire you? Dear Brand New, do you care about your fans? Sometimes I just don't know, and this show still left me firing out questions. But thank you for the awesome performance. You guys are fucking great.
That said, I am keeping my mouth shut from now on about anything that involves The Graduate because I can barely resist talking about things I promised I wouldn't talk about and Jacqueline and I aren't trying to lose our invite to the wedding. What band? Who?
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